Good Graces (16 page)

Dave and I are walking slightly ahead of Troo, who is kicking a rock that is coming dangerously close to my father’s ankle. Mother and Nell and Peggy Sure are behind her on the sidewalk. The reason Nell is with us and not with Eddie the way a wife is supposed to be is because after the game he was nowhere to be found, which means he probably headed up to the Milky Way. (Dave tried to have a man-to-man with Eddie about being a better husband and father, but that talk didn’t make a dent in that moron’s thick skull.)

I decided the walk home would be the perfect time to get more information out of my father. I have had hardly any time with him. He’s been so busy trying to catch the cat burglar. “Can I ask you a coupla questions?” I say.

“Shoot,” he says, which is cop talk for, go right ahead.

“How did Molinari get out of the reform school anyway? Did the guard doze off?” That’s what happens most of the time in movies when a criminal breaks out of jail. That, or a ripe-looking Italian girl shows up with a bottle of wine in a low-cut blouse with a black cinch belt.

Dave looks down at me with so much kindness. “We’ll apprehend Alfred eventually, Sally. Don’t worry. He can run, but he can’t hide.”

“Well, actually, he
can’t
run,” Troo butts in from behind. She pretends to ignore everything that Dave says and does, but she watches him, waits for him to make one wrong move. “If you were such a good detective, you’d know that.” She swings her leg back and kicks the rock hard. It bounces off the heel of Dave’s shoe. “By the way, did you catch the cat burglar yet?”

Dave heard Troo’s sassy remark just fine, but he doesn’t blow his stack the way Mother would’ve if she’d heard Troo smarting off like that. Dave keeps his steady green eyes on mine and tells me, “Rest easy. Law officers from Milwaukee and all points south are aware of the situation.”

“But just
knowin’
that Molinari’s escaped isn’t enough,” I say. “Did they issue an All Points Bulletin? Do they have tommy guns? Are they—”

Mother, who’s closer than I thought, tugs down hard on my braid. “Simmer down, Sally!” She bustles to Dave’s side and says in an even more fed-up way, “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me. Filling up her mind with talk of your cases and . . . and all those criminal television shows the two of you watch . . . see what you’ve done?”

Dave gives Mother an
I’m sorry
look and I do, too. Not only do I not want to cause any more problems between them, I can’t have her yell at me for the rest of the night and then not talk to me for three days. That’s the worst punishment there is, to feel invisible like that, so I swallow back the questions I have about Charlie Fitch, too. The next time Dave and me work in the garden together, that’s when I’ll ask him. It’s important to find Charlie even if he’s dead, not only for Mr. and Mrs. Honeywell’s sake, but for Artie Latour’s. When we walked past his house, he was standing out on his porch yo-yoing, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

When we make the turn onto Lloyd Street, three houses down, we come to the Molinaris’.

Their place is not rising out of a swamp with moss hanging all over it the way you’d expect. The house has got fresh white siding with a mowed lawn and two robins are splashing around in the birdbath that’s set in a yellow petunia flower bed. Sure, the place looks nice on the outside, but so did Bobby Brophy. Who knows what evil deeds those Italians are up to in their rumpus room. Or their garage. That’s where Greasy Al’s brothers, The Mangling Meatball and Moochie, have a bench they lie down on to lift barbells under a pinup picture of Jane Russell lounging in a haystack. Those boys have bulging muscles and switchblades that they’re not shy about flicking open to remind you who’s boss around here. There are all sorts of sharp tools hanging on the walls of that garage that a convict could use to cut off his ball and chain.

Because I’m walking with my head turned back to my sister to make sure she doesn’t run off, I don’t even notice that we’ve made it to the front of our house until I bump into the back of Dave.

Mother flips up the baby’s buggy top and says to Nell, “Well, you better get a move on. It’s late.”

Nell whines, “But . . . I’m so tired . . . it’s six blocks. Could I get a ride back to the apartment? Please, Mother.”

“Absolutely not. You need the exercise. Your rear end, it’s . . .” Mother widens her arms out as far as they go. “How do you ever expect to get your figure back?”

“Helen, it’ll only take a few minutes, let me . . . ,” Dave tries to say, but before he can get the rest of it outta his mouth Mother gives him her do-you-smell-dog-poop look and that’s that.

I can’t take this anymore. “Hold on, Nell. I’ll get Lizzie on her leash and walk you back at least part a the way.”

Troo says, “I’ll go with.” Not for Nell’s sake. Or mine. She adores Peggy Sure. When she thinks you aren’t looking, she smothers her tummy in raspberries. But baby love is not all she’s got on her mind tonight. Troo’s gonna ditch me on the way back so she can go look for Molinari. Walking past their house riled up her revenge feelings.

Mother tells us, “You two’ll do no such thing.” She runs her hand across Nell’s hair like she understands how cruddy things are for her being married to outer-space-skank-loving Eddie Callahan for the rest of her life, the same way things were bad for Mother when she was married, and still is, to waitress-loving Hall Gustafson. But when Nell’s pointy chin starts trembling and she tries to put her head down on Mother’s shoulder, Mother steps out of reach and says, “Powder your nose. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, for godsakes.”

When Troo opens her mouth to point out to Mother that Nell has on flats, the phone starts
bring . . . bring
ing from inside the house. It’s the station house calling for Dave. It always is this late at night.

Dave says sheepishly to Mother, “I’m sorry. I’ve got to get that,” and takes our front steps three at a time.

I’m right behind him, thinking to myself another reason why I need to make Troo buckle under immediately. She’s gotta be prepared for when we get old like Nell. When Mother pushes you outta her nest, you better have your wings in good working order, sister.

T
he inside of the house is quiet, except for Lizzie, who is bouncing up to my chin, looking for a biscuit. When Granny says, “Hope springs eternal,” she must have our little collie in mind.

I’m always happy to see our furniture waiting for us with open arms. It’s nicer than what we ever had before. It’s double-stuffed checkered and it matches, even the hassock in front of the davenport that Dave and me can put our feet up on when we watch TV. His sink in next to mine and look good. We got the same-shaped toes.

It still smells in here like the pigs-in-the-blanket Dave made us for supper. I never saw any father do this before. Not even Daddy. I like to watch Dave in front of the stove stirring the same way I used to like to watch Daddy shave in front of the sink or tinker with the tractor. Dave tells me he enjoys cooking and I would like to send out a special thank-you to St. Theresa the Little Flower for prayers granted. (Mother made us something yesterday called
slumgoodie,
which had hamburger and tomatoes and some secret ingredient that must have something to do with the
slum
part of its name because it had absolutely nothing to do with the
goodie
part.)

Dave is dashing through the living room toward the black telephone that sits in an alcove in the hallway like one of the shrines up at church. I’m hoping with all I got that somebody in the neighborhood saw Molinari lurking outside his garage and they called the station and now the cops over on Burleigh Street are ringing Dave up so he can help capture Greasy Al, who they have trapped in a dragnet.

“Rasmussen,” he says into the horn. “Yes, sir. When? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’ll get right on it, Captain.”

After Dave drops the phone back down in the cradle, I ask, “Is it Molinari? Did they catch him?”

He shakes his head and runs his fingers through his usually light blond hair that has gone knotty pine–colored from his baseball sweat. “When we were at the game, somebody broke into the Livingstons’ house.”

“Oh, no. What . . . what got stolen?” I ask.

“They haven’t had a chance to go through the whole house yet to check what’s missing, but so far, Tom’s rodeo belt buckle is gone along with their best silver. I need to get over there.”

I know that Greasy Al isn’t the regular cat burglar because things were getting stolen before he escaped from reform school, but it could be him just this one time. It’s been weeks since he has been on the run and his stomach should be growling. He can’t just show up at his family’s restaurant or the Milky Way in his striped prison suit. Yes. That makes perfect sense. Greasy Al burgled some food
and
the Livingstons’ silver because even
he
isn’t uncivilized enough to eat raw meat with his bare hands.

“You should check the freezer in their basement,” I tell Dave when I’m done thinking it through. Mr. Livingston is our butcher. His daughter, Kit, is in my grade at school. She brought a hunk of beef for show-and-tell. When she was done explaining to the class that her father is originally from Montana and that’s why he knows how to cut up cows, she told us they had a whole freezer full of T-bones in their basement. “There’s probably a few steaks missin’.”

Dave’s pale eyebrows shoot up straight as exclamation points. “Sally . . . that’s . . . why would somebody take—are you okay?”

I should tell him right this minute about my suspicisons about Greasy Al. And Mary Lane, who I’m sure has been doing the burglaries this whole time. It’s got to be one of the two of them who broke into the Livingstons’. At the game tonight, Mary Lane was looking extra skinny. She mighta slipped away during the seventhinning stretch for a late-night snack. But Dave’s unbuttoning his baseball shirt in a hurry and heading into the bathroom, just missing Mother, who walks past me on her way to the kitchen. If she hears me telling Dave anything having to do with police business of any kind she’ll get mad all over again.

She calls out to him, “I’ll make us some popcorn and pour us a couple of beers. I thought we could watch Jack Parr. I kid you not.
Hardy . . . har . . . har.
Who was on the phone by the way?”

Dave sticks his head out of the bathroom, sighs and shrugs, and I do the same back to him. She knows darn well he can’t stay to cuddle up with her while they watch
The Tonight Show
. He’s gotta leave and do his detecting job. Mother’s trying to make him feel like he is letting her down. Again. This is something that she is astoundingly good at. She could be the Eighth Wonder of the World when it comes to letting you know how much you disappoint her.

“There’s been another burglary,” Dave says, down in the mouth. “That was the station calling.”

Mother says like this is the first time the thought has crossed her mind, “The station?”

“I’m sorry. I know you made plans, but I’ve got a responsibility to—”

“But you promised,” Mother says. “You told me that . . .”

Dave must apologize to her five times a day and I don’t want to hear him doing it one more time. She was so happy when they first got together again and moved into this house with the white shutters and window boxes that my father keeps filled with red geraniums because that’s her favorite flower, but nowadays, most of the time all Mother does is complain. Especially about him working such long hours since he really doesn’t need to have a job at all. You wouldn’t know it because he doesn’t drive a Lincoln Continental or swing a gold watch on a chain, but Dave is filthy rich. He won’t get his money stolen by the cat burglar though, because it’s not here in the house. He keeps it in something called a trust fund, which I really like the sound of.

After I found out that Dave was my father, I had so many questions. Especially about my other grandparents that I never met. I went straight to Granny’s little house. I knew she wouldn’t get worked up the way Mother would if I wanted answers and I was right. When I asked her to fill me in, Granny didn’t even mention how curiosity killed the cat. She arranged melba toast on a plate and poured me a cuppa out of her copper kettle that she brought all the way from the old country. (A cuppa is what she calls a cup of tea chock-full of milk and sugar.)

“So, Sally m’girl, you want to know more about the other half of your family?” Granny asked, across from me at the kitchen table. “The Danish side?”

“Yes, please,” I said, sipping and nibbling, wondering like I always do why the dickens she loves melba toast so much. It tastes like shingles.

Warming up to the idea since she’s got the gift of gab, Granny said, “You wouldn’t have liked your other grandmother. Before she died from tuberculosis, Gertie was very vain about her legs, which were nice, but not that nice.” Granny’s eyes went even more bulgy than usual. “But your grandfather, Ernie, now there was a horse of a different color. The man had a heart of gold and the Midas touch. He got a lotta
dough
for the cookie factory when it sold,” she told me, which was a pretty funny, so I laughed, too.

Troo.

Where is she? I didn’t see her follow Mother back into the house. Maybe she’s in our bedroom.

“You in here?” I whisper-call. Except for Daddy looking down on me from the wall and baby doll Annie’s legs sticking out from under her pillow, it’s empty.

I take a couple of steps backward into Mother’s bedroom. My sister likes to come in here, but usually when our mother isn’t home. Troo’ll sit at the dressing table and dab perfume behind her ears and smooth on lipstick, smacking her poofy lips in the mirror when she’s got it just right. She also loves to snoop. She’s always looking through my “How I Spent My Charitable Summer” notebook and under Granny’s bed and over at Nell’s, she’ll rifle through the closets. She especially likes rooting around in Mother’s drawers. I’m not sure what she’s looking for.